Conflicted feelings about Maui, Hawaii

We recently took a trip to Maui. My first trip to Hawaii, or any other beach, tropical vacation. It’s no secret that I’m a mountain lover, and I prefer my water frozen. I don’t have any fear of water, and I’m an okay swimmer. Water and beaches just aren’t my thing. But I figured I should at least go once in my life.

I had no illusions that I was going to be a traveler on this trip. I was going as a tourist. Islands are not my element, I wasn’t about to try and bullshit it. Mostly my plan was to do little or nothing. Not the best way to uncover how life in Hawaii is.

As I was there, it was hard for me to imagine natural Maui. It seems that any part of the island, meaning any usable land, was used up for plantation farming or some sort of industrial production. Then as the plantations died away, they were all bought up as resorts and private residences.

It’s an island of extremes. One part of places like the Ritz. Another part is the beach shacks and the people living in cars just slightly off to the side mostly out of sight. Then in between are the people just trying to make a life and keep staying on the island they grew up on. People on the edges of capitalism, as I call them. The one percent live off in modern gated plantations, while the refusniks still make a life off the other side of capitalism. All the time the ones somewhere in between don’t know who to be made at. Although I think most of them blame that one percent and the tourist who are enabling them.

One thing that we ran into is we didn’t have a lot planned. Usually, this works out all right. But it seems that here you really just need to pay a tour guide to get anything done. Sure you can do it self-directed. People do it all the time. But they don’t really make it easy. Most of the things you find direct you to a tour, and it seems the tour guides have a lock on a lot of the sweetest locations.

I saw a few people that rented out camper vans. It would really be a good idea if you could figure out how to understand where to camp. I think you might be fighting with the van dwellers and the surf bums. Let them have it, it might be the only place they can afford to stay.

Did I love it? No. Did I hate it? Also no. It’s a beauty that is best taken from a distance. Like sailing off the coast of the island.